Sunday, May 6, 2012

Memphis, TN, feels like home away from home for me. Whenever I have an opportunity, I drive my way there. On top of the list of reasons I still feel connected to the land of Elvis are the friends I made there during the two years I attended Grad School at the U of M. I still have a couple of great, very close groups of friends back in my hometown, and a few ones spread across many states in the US and even Europe and Asia, but the folks I know in Memphis are very, very special to me. Not only are they great friends - those with whom circumstances can make you go several months, or even years without close contact, and when you see each other you pick it back up as if you had never been apart - but they also make up one of the brightest brain collections on earth, equally great for chatting about meaningless topics, or for draining substantial knowledge on areas of interest (training, nutrition, business, lifestyle, etc).

During my last trip there, I was invited to be the guest for Barbell Shrugged, the podcast being ran by the FactionSC crew. If you have not been following it, you're missing out. Although this is only the 9th episode, each one before it has provided a lot of food for thought, along with plenty of funny interactions between the crew and guests. Mike, Doug, and Chris, as well as producers and occasional hosts James Cheney and CTP, all bring in great knowledge in a wide array of areas, and the casual conversation also draws the best out of each guest.
This was a lot of fun, and I can say it was a great learning opportunity for me, too. As we dug into the area of strength training, I knew these guys were all capable of providing a lot of good ideas and comments, as they did, regardless of their (lack of) swimming background. I hope people watching can enjoy it as much as I did.

Warning: the casual conversation style of the show also means adult language is used as often as the situation calls for it. It is not over the top, or done with the intention of being offensive, and largely outweighed by the good content, but it is there.